In Santa Monica
by White-Lily-Blossom
Summary: Shane's days turning tricks in Santa Monica, and the "John" who sent her to hairdressing school. Mild sexual content and some foul language.


Disclaimer: The L Word doesn't belong to me. I only borrowed it.

Summary: ever wondered who was the "John" that sent Shane to hairdressing school? I did. He must've been special (or obsessed) to send a boy who gave him hand-jobs on the streets to school and pay for all the expenses. This is my take on things.

Warning: mild sexual content, foul language. Not your thing? Don't read, please.

-----

He thinks of himself as "John".

That's how they're referred to, anyway; the "Johns". So why not use it as a name? It's not like they expect him to give his real name. They don't expect anything from him except to pay. It's better to think of himself as John, get used to it, as to not slip up accidentally. It's not really legal, after all.

Usually he doesn't go for street urchins. He prefers the more, well, respectable places. More in the gray. More discrete, anyway, if you have money and know where to go. It's not like he's the only one that does it. Men have been doing it for centuries. More often than not with women, yes, but he simply has a different… taste, shall we say? Leaning, or whatever you want to call it.

He prefers to call it appetite, and not dwell on it any longer than necessary.

Anyway, he doesn't usually go for alley dwellers. They're dirty, and scrawny, and most of the time they're high as a kite, and you never know where they've been and what they've caught. Speaking of caught, that's a likely possibility, and he has no inclination to be caught fucking some whore in a filthy ruin just because the police have decided it was time to raid the place. He's a respectable man, after all, and it's no one's business what he does on his spare time; he's got a reputation to protect.

And he wouldn't be here, either, except an acquaintance of his, who happened to share the same appetites (minus the aversion to those who walk the streets), had told him about a _boy_.

_Eyes you could drown in_, he said, _and a mouth that could fuel your fantasies for weeks_. Only did hand jobs, but, well, maybe with enough money he could be persuaded otherwise. He didn't know the boy's name. _But_, he leered; _you'll recognize him when you see him. Trust me._

So here he is, surveying the grim surroundings with disgust, trying not to step in things he didn't recognize and eyeing the skinny, grubby teenagers lounging about from underneath the brim of his hat. He doesn't need anyone to recognize him, so he wears sunglasses and keeps his face as hidden as he can .

They look back at him with interest; he's well dressed and obviously rich, and that's all that matters to them, in the end. That they'd have enough to eat and maybe snort at the end of the day. He doesn't see the _boy_, though; some of them are good looking enough, he supposes, but he can get that at other, cleaner, _safer_ places, too. Just as he's about to turn around and leave, cursing his acquaintance for wasting his time, two boys come out from one of the alleys, and his heart misses a bit.

One is a surly seventeen-year-old with a face you'd forget the minute you blink, but the _other_. The other makes his mouth go dry. And he's young, so young it makes John faintly disgusted with himself – fourteen at the most – but not near as disgusted enough to leave, not now that he's seen him.

They come closer, and he's the most beautiful boy he's ever seen, huge dark eyes in a pale, angular face, and a red, angry mouth that was made for kisses. Or, well, other things, but he's told the boy doesn't do that. He's almost painfully thin, even underneath the baggy, torn jeans and the dirty hoodie, graceful even while slouching, and he meets John's eyes with a glare that sets his blood on fire.

The other teenagers roll their eyes and shrug, obviously knowing they stand no chance now, and he motions the boy over. The boy's mouth tightens, and he exchanges looks with his companion before swaggering over, face expressionless.

"How much?" John asks, not that it matters. The boy narrows his eyes as he names a price, ridiculously low compared to what John usually pays, and adds flatly "I only do hand jobs. And the pay is in advance".

"I know," John answers, but he also knows that in this world, money can buy you anything you want, if you have enough of it. And right now, there's nothing he wants more than this boy.

The boy leads him some distance away to a semi-secluded niche, and John doesn't even care that his five hundred dollars coat is touching the filthy walls, not when the boy opens John's zipper and puts his hand inside. He's obviously done this many times before, long, slim fingers working as John shudders and clutches at the stones behind him; he wants to touch the boy, to press him against the wall, to kiss him, but he knows that's against the rules. At least for now.

He watches the boy's face, small and pale and almost bored, with his huge, long-lashed eyes and twisting, pouty mouth, with his perfect nose and smooth skin that stretches too tightly over sharp cheekbones. His wild, crudely cut hair tumbles into his eyes in dark locks, narrow shoulder moving under the too-large hoodie as his hand moves.

John is completely and utterly enthralled.

Afterwards, as John catches his breath, the boy wipes his hand with faint displeasure on a newspaper he picks off the ground, and turns to leave. "What's your name?" John calls after him, and the boy asks suspiciously "what does it matter?"

"I'll give you five bucks if you tell me," he answers, hating himself, but taking out the money nevertheless. The boy still looks at him as though it's a trap, his eyes flicking between John's face and the money in his hand. In the end, he says "Shane," and holds his hand out, thin fingers spread, fingernails bitten almost to the core. John puts the bills in his hand, and watches as he walks away.

"Shane," he repeats quietly, feeling like a fool. It's a beautiful name.

------

A long time after, Clive doesn't know what made him go up to her.

It's three days after he first saw her, rail-thin girl getting off a bus in Santa Monica, a large backpack clutched in her hands protectively and nothing else. She doesn't exactly look lost, but then again she doesn't exactly look like she knows what she's doing here, either. She looks around her, than walks quickly away, disappearing down a street. Clive doesn't give it much thought, and continues on his way to buy a packet of cigarettes.

He sees her again the next day, seating on a bench smoking, folded into herself, the end of her cigarette a dim flickering light between graceful thin fingers. She ignores the stares she gets as people mile about, and when a man finally walks up to her, probably getting the wrong idea, something about the way she looks at him makes him scramble away after only a moment.

This piques Clive's interest, and he studies her more closely, but all he can see from this distance is a shock of dark, wild hair gathered into a messy ponytail, and a flash of huge dark eyes when she raises her head, set in a thin, pale face. Thin is the best word to describe her; she's tiny and it's obvious just how skinny she is under her oversized clothes, bony arms resting on bony knees, heavy army boots scraping the concrete idly as she blows out ring after ring of smoke. He doesn't think she ate since she got here yesterday.

On the third day she isn't on the bench, and he thinks she left, and shrugs, oddly disappointed, as he continues on his way to the grocery store. Therefore, he is surprised to see her standing in a corner near the store, backpack held tight in white fingers, eyes trained on the doorway. She doesn't go in, but she looks hungry.

He isn't sure why he buys another bread roll, but he has money, he's had a rather successful day yesterday, and he can afford it. He walks over to her, and is almost shocked by how beautiful she actually is when she turns to face him, eyes narrowed and expression suspicious. "What the fuck do you want?" she asks coldly, her voice surprisingly low and scratchy, and he shrugs, handing her the roll.

"What's this?" she asks, glaring at him with dark green eyes that make his breath catch, full lips curling with distaste, and god, if he had a mouth like that he'd be a rich man by now. But he can see the hunger in her eyes as she looks at the bread, thin fingers twitching.

"You looked hungry," is all he says "it's not poisoned, and I'm not looking for anything in return". She still looks wary, but in the end she takes the bread, almost choking on it as she hurriedly swallows it down, as though afraid he'll change his mind and take it away. He eats his slower, watching her curiously.

He thinks she looks about fourteen, though she's tall for a girl, but then she's so slender and lacking in curves that he could be mistaken. If she has breasts, they're hidden under her hoodie along with her waist, and her dirty jeans hang too big on her narrow frame to determine whether she has hips or not. Her cheekbones – though elegant – are so sharp they look like they'll pierce the skin any moment, and the fabric at her elbows looks frayed, as though her elbows are actually tearing through.

"Done looking?" she asks, flatly, but she doesn't sound as hostile any more. She's probably used to people looking at her, whether it because of the homeless look she's sporting or because of _her_. "Sorry," he says, off-handedly, and asks "are you still hungry?" he has a little more money to spare, and something about her draws him in; as stupid as it sounds, she makes him want to take care of her.

"I'm okay," she shrugs, though he suspects she's lying "thanks". She leans against the wall, hipbones jutting out, one long leg folded, all casual, easy grace, and digs two cigarettes from her pocket, offering him one. He takes it, and she lights them both, cheeks hollowing even more as she takes a drag.

"What's your name?" he asks, curious, and when her expression darkens he adds "I'm Clive".

"Shane," she answers finally, and they smoke together, quietly, but almost comfortable.

Later he learns that she's sixteen, or at least that's what she says, and that she came here because the bus to Santa Monica was the first one that crossed her path. She doesn't say where she came from, or why she left, but he gets the feeling she didn't exactly have the best life even before now. A long time later, after she begins to trust him, she tells him that she ran away from foster care, not that it really matters.

He doesn't know what gives him the idea to disguise her as a boy and add her to his, for a lack of a better word, group; he doesn't know what made him think it was a good to mention it to her, either, except that he's fascinated by her, and he strangely dislikes the idea of any harm coming to her, and he knows what happens to girls on the streets if they're all alone.

At first she looks at him like he's crazy, but he can see she doesn't have any better ideas; it's not like she has a plan, like she knew what she was doing when she got on that bus, except that she wanted to get away. He cuts her hair with a pocket knife at some public restroom, as she leans over the filthy sinks and watches him in the broken mirror, her face expressionless; it's a bad haircut, he's no expert, and wild strands are surrounding her face unevenly, but she doesn't seem to mind.

He's surprised by how boyish she actually looks, now that her ponytail is gone; not manly, but in between; what's that word he heard once? Androgynous. She's still a little too pretty to pass as completely male, but her total lack of curves is helpful, and her voice is low enough to be confused with that of a young teenager.

She's disgusted at the idea of selling herself, and in a way being a boy calms her down, because she doesn't have to do anything more than she wants too. He tells her to state the terms to costumers in advance to avoid trouble later, and to never go too far when she's with them. He doesn't ask her where she learned how to give hand-jobs, and she doesn't provide any information on the topic.

When he shows up with her behind him the other boys take notice, staring at her with interest and making rude remarks. It doesn't seem to bother her one bit; she's tougher than she looks, and gives as good as she gets, and in a few hours they accept her as one of their own. He tells her to keep close, just in case, he sees the looks the others give her, and when they go to sleep she keeps between him and the wall.

She has her first costumer the next day, and does it almost as professionally as the rest of them; she looks disgusted as she comes back, wiping her hand on a rag she picks up, but she puts the money in her pocket with satisfaction.

She gets her next costumer barely half an hour after that.

Clive supposes he should feel jealous; she's the first one all the costumers approach. But it's actually better for all of them; she flatly refuses anything but hand-jobs, leaving most of the costumers frustrated, and the rest of the group, a lot more willing, get the chance next. All in all, things are a lot better than before, and the rest of the boys warm up to her as well, coming to regard her as somewhat of a younger brother. He's the only one who knows she's really a girl.

_He_ shows up about a month after she starts working; he's someone Clive's never seen before. Everything about him screams "money" and he looks around him with such profound disgust that Clive wonders why he's even here; this doesn't look like his thing. He stares at Shane like a man in the dessert looks at water, though, and motions her over, face half-hidden under a hat. He looks strangely familiar, even though Clive would swear he's never been a costumer.

Shane tenses beside him; the rich ones are more dangerous, they have power and it's harder to get them to take no for an answer. But she goes, because money is money, and this guy probably pays more than most. He doesn't argue with her terms, though, only follows her around the corner; as Clive told her, she stays half in sight, just in case.

She comes back quickly enough, her expression the one he knows so well by now, flat and slightly disgusted; Clive sees the man stare after her, hungrily, and it makes him uneasy. But then, that's life, that's their life, and if it's good for business, they'll bear it, even her.

The man comes back after a few days, and this time he tries to talk her into giving him a blowjob; the amount of money he end up offering her could've easily bought three or four of the rest of them, but Shane won't even hear it. When she turns to leave he seems almost desperate, and ends up paying her more than he did last time for the usual.

She seems angry when she comes back, and shoves the money into her pocket roughly, saying "next time you can have him. I'm not doing him anymore". She won't tell him what he said to her, only that she refuses to go near him again.

Of course he returns a couple of days later, and Shane tries to slip out of sight as discretely as she can, but the man spots her anyway. She won't go up to him, and he ends up coming up to the rest of them, his face a mixture of anger and something that looks almost like fear. It takes him almost triple the amount she usually takes to get her to agree, plus a promise not to speak during the hand job. Clive thinks it's ridicules, that she's just throwing good money down the drain, and is shocked when the man consents without batting an eye.

Clive tells her to be careful, because the man makes him edgy, but there's no real need for it; she has good survival instincts, she knows when to push and when to be cautious, and she knows this one's different than the rest. He keeps coming back, for one thing.

Clive keeps an eye on her, all the same.

------

Shane likes Clive. He's a decent sort of guy, despite his general spineless attitude; he treats her as a sibling and she has no problem to admit that she'd be in deep shit without him. Not that her life is all that great right now, but she makes enough money for food and cigarettes and even a little drugs once in a while, she has a place to sleep that's relatively sheltered and she has friends, sort of. That's better than before.

She even has girls; the hookers that populate the area adore her, and she adores them all in return, and whenever business is slow and the pimps are high she slinks away with one of them to a secluded corner. They let her kiss them for hours, especially if she slides her hand into their underwear and brings them off; she's rather good with that, she's rather good with them, and they always smile at her and never say no.

The first time Clive sees her with one of them his jaw nearly hits the floor, and she frowns; she doesn't know why he's surprised, isn't he gay himself? He insists he isn't, which she finds rather disgusting; he lets men fuck him for money, which she thinks is worse than letting women fuck him for money, since he's not even attracted to them. She'd never let a man touch her, no matter how much he'd offer her in return.

Which brings her to this new costumer that keeps returning all the time. At first she though he was like all the others, just a little richer than the type they usually get, but he frightens her, though she'd never admit it. He looks at her like she has so much power over him, and offers her insane amounts of money for things she'd never do. It's getting harder to get him to take no for an answer, too, and she contemplates leaving, except that she doesn't have anywhere else to go.

The next time he offers to get her off the streets if she comes with him. She stops in the middle of the job, throws his money back at him, and storms away.

-------

John doesn't know why he keeps coming back. Except that he does.

It's becoming dangerous, it's becoming an obsession, and any minute he could slip up, and this would surely ruin him if it gets out. But though he knows that, knows that every time he comes back its one step closer to his execution, he won't stop. Can't stop.

It's like an itch under his skin that grows stronger the longer he stays away, making him short-tempered and anxious and sets his teeth on edge. He's a thirsty man with no means of quenching himself, because what Shane gives out isn't near enough, and no one else would do anymore. He can't be bought, and the more John offers him, the stronger the rejection is. It's ridicules; everyone has a price in this world, politicians and law representatives and every goddamn person that he passes on the street, and the only person he can't buy is one that sells himself for money.

Except that he doesn't sell himself, not like the other boys around him; he has no problem refusing, he doesn't need you, if he touches you it's like he's doing you a favour, and he'd never, **ever** let you touch him back. He's his own person, and as the time passes John knows he'd never let anyone own him.

John thinks that maybe that's why he keeps returning.

When he comes back the next time, it's the first time he sees Shane with another client. The sight makes him want to hit something, preferably the client. It's not that he thought he was in any way special; the disgusted looks the boy throws him every time he sees him show exactly what Shane thinks of him. It's that if he can't have him, he doesn't want anyone else to have the chance.

He knows Shane doesn't like men; he's seen the looks he gives the hookers that go by, looks that transform him completely; if he could get him off the street, he'll sleep easier at night, even with the hunger inside him.

When he brings the subject up next time Shane almost storms off again, expression turning even darker than usual, full mouth thinning to a tense line. He looks like he wants to punch John, maybe, looks at him like he's never hated anyone as much in his life; John quickly says "I don't want anything in return".

The boy looks at him suspiciously, dark eyes narrow "than what the fuck do you want?" he snaps, hands shoved angrily inside his pockets.

"I want to get you off the streets before you'll ruin yourself," he answers, simply, because it's the truth. He knows what happens to those who live at the edges of society; if some costumer won't kill him he'll die from an overdose, or he'll catch something from an infected needle; he'll get in the middle of a gang war, or he'll get arrested by the police and thrown in jail and god only knows what will happen to him there. "You don't belong here," is all he says, though, because he can't say anything else.

Shane is quiet for a long time, mistrust evident in every line of his body, but in the end he says flatly "what did you have in mind?"

John wants to send him to a hairdressing school in LA; it's a good school, it'll give him a job, and even if he'd be awful at it he could always be a shampoo boy. And LA is far enough so no on will recognize him, and far enough away to give John some peace of mind.

He says he'll cover all the expenses, as long as Shane stays there. The only terms are that Shane will never get back on the streets again.

In the end, Shane agrees, even though he still doesn't look like he really believes him. He smiles at him, though, a beautiful smile like sunrise, and John thinks that alone is worth it.

------

Shane tells Clive she's leaving, that the john that kept coming back is sending her away to school. He's never heard something as stupid in his life, but when he sees how the man looks at her, he thinks that maybe he can believe it. She wants him to come with her to LA, says they can rent a place together and he could get a real job. When he refuses, she makes him promise to leave the streets. He does.

She hugs him goodbye and gives him the address of the school, tells him to drop by if he's having trouble and she'll help him. She says she owes him, and that she won't forget him, and that she'll hate him if he doesn't get in touch at least once in a while. She's been here for only six months, in the end, but he knew that moment he saw her that she was meant for more. He hopes she'll succeed.

Clive watches her as she gets on a bus, rail-thin girl-boy with wild dark hair, holding a backpack and nothing else, and when she turns to smile and wave at him he smiles and wave back.

He thinks he'll miss her.

------

So, what did you think? I live for reviews, so a few words would buy my heart forever.


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